Senators Sign On To Plan For U.s. To Pay Un Dues

June 11, 1997|By New York Times News Service.

WASHINGTON — After years of impasse followed by months of intense negotiations, the Clinton administration reached agreement Tuesday with Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on a plan to pay $819 million in delinquent dues to the United Nations over the next three years.

The payment, however, would come only after the UN took significant steps, including reducing its budgets and cutting the U.S. share of payments, officials familiar with the agreement said.

In addition, payment of current and future dues--now roughly $300 million a year--would be contingent on a variety of conditions, including personnel cuts at the UN.

At the insistence of the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, the proposal would also wade into New York City's dispute with scofflaw diplomats by cutting aid to nations whose diplomats do not pay their parking tickets.

The conditions could prove controversial at the UN, where the United States already is viewed as a bully, having orchestrated the ouster of Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the selection of his successor, Kofi Annan. So could the amount of the payment, which falls well short of the $1.3 billion the world body considers past due.

But the agreement to pay the dues appears to be a significant step toward resolving an issue that has long led scorn to be directed at the United States and that, in recent years at least, has shown signs of undercutting U.S. diplomacy at the world body.

The U.S. representative at the UN, Bill Richardson, said Tuesday evening that the administration remained concerned about some of the provisions in the proposal but considered it a "major step forward."

"We have a chance to get a real bipartisan package that will be acceptable at the United Nations," Richardson said after spending Tuesday lobbying legislators on Capitol Hill.

The proposal was largely hammered out in talks between Helms, one of the sharpest critics of the UN in Congress, and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

The proposal, which still requires approval by Congress and the signature of President Clinton, is expected to be made public when the committee meets Thursday to consider legislation authorizing the budget for foreign affairs spending.

Although the House must also approve any payment, the Senate has taken the lead on the issue, and any legislation coming from Helms' committee is likely to be the basis of any final agreement.

Among other things under the agreement, the UN would have to reduce the U.S. share of dues for the general budget to 22 percent in the second year of the plan, from 25 percent now.

The U.S. share of the peacekeeping budget would have to fall to 25 percent from about 31 percent currently.

By the third year, the general dues would have to fall to 20 percent while the UN would have to take steps to reduce expense accounts, review programs with an eye to ending their mandates and allow the General Accounting Office to examine its books.